Deliverance
by AlienZombies
Summary: Escape is only the first step. Physical recovery is a simple matter - it is healing the heart that takes time. NICKxELLIS


Apologies for any errors. I don't have a beta.

**Deliverance**

Nick had expected this to happen. He had predicted it from day one, having never had faith in the military, or the United States, or people as a whole. He had known, inexplicably, what was coming, had anticipated it, but all the same he couldn't stop the bubble of nauseas dread and cold alarm that rose in him when they began to approach The Safe Zone.

The Safe Zone was in capital letters in Nick's mind because, as far as he was concerned, it was the greatest goal in his entire life, aside from Staying Alive and Becoming a Millionaire.

But even though it was vitally important, The Safe Zone was located in the heart of a shitty little state called Montana – because nobody lived there, and the impending winter frost was sure to kill off a good few zombies before they could attack. The lack of foliage in the long, endless plains made it easy for sentries to spot and kill incoming hordes or looters.

Nick didn't know much about the Midwest, but he was sure he was probably going to hate it before this was all over.

From a distance, The Safe Zone looked safe, placid, cleanly – a good place, a wonderful haven free from infection and loaded with fresh food and medical facilities and a place to sleep, and showers.

"Oh, God, I bet they have showers," Rochelle said, her face plastered to the window. Tears streaked her face. "Oh, _lordy be_, I bet they do…"

"Showers," Ellis murmured, and got a slow grin on his face. "Shit, it's been like, a month, ain't it?"

The helicopter began to dip towards the horizon, and Nick gripped the seat nervously. He never liked flying, didn't like it when his feet weren't touching the ground. He watched the earth get closer and closer to soothe his jangling nerves, ignoring the warm pressure of Ellis's hand on his arm, the concerned expression on his face. As they descended, what had at first appeared to be white buildings became abundantly clear that they were not buildings at all, but makeshift tents, all in perfect rows, butt-to-butt in threes. People milled around between them, and Nick even spotted a child. Outside of each tent was a plastic crate, though for what he didn't know. Jeeps patrolled the dirt tracks between the tents like enormous guard dogs, stopping when people crossed in front of them or when they came to a section of gate – there were two long fences cutting across the center of The Safe Zone, like crosshairs, and each section seemed to have a specific purpose. They were huge concrete fences, with electric wire along the top, except for the spires where patrols stood armed with automatic weapons.

"I don't like the looks of this," Nick murmured.

Rochelle glanced at him. They had learned to listen to him, because he was actually quite intuitive, and was most often right – even when he didn't want to be. This was how he had made it so far as a conman and a gambler: he knew when to play and when to fold.

"What is it?" Ellis asked, his voice slightly slurred. They had been in the helicopter for several hours now, and they were all exhausted, the thrill of making it to safety having passed.

Nick sighed, rubbing his temple to ward off the beginnings of a headache. "Aren't you seeing this? The tents?"

"What were you expecting, boy?" Coach grumbled. "A goddamn mansion? Anything's better than what we've been living through."

"I guess," Nick conceded, not wanting to fight, not now. "I guess you're right. I just don't like it."

"We've got about ten minutes until we land, folks," said the pilot, glancing back at them with a tired smile.

"Thanks, man, we owe you one," Ellis said. "Honest."

"Not a problem," the pilot answered, and his smile grew a little. He turned back to his job.

Nick swallowed as they drifted towards the ground.

* * *

They all lost their clothes in the quarantine. Ellis had to fight tooth and nail to keep his wallet, and by the end of her scrub-down, Rochelle was crying, muttering about how "_It ain't right, after all of that zombie nonsense, that was worse, that ain't right_…" Coach stood impassively through it, complaining only once when they got to the more intimate investigations of his health.

Nick didn't like the DNA samples they took to test for infection. They were all clean, in a way – the virus couldn't make them sick. They would be placed, said the man in the brilliant yellow hazmat suit, amongst others of their kind.

"That gave me the heeby-jeebies," Ellis commented as they waited for Coach to get done. "I ain't never had someone do _that_ to my ass 'afore – hey! Did I tell you about that one time, me and Keith was campin' up in the mountains, and we thought we heard this mountain lion, and Keith was all like –"

"Ellis," Nick said sharply, cradling the distraught Rochelle in his arms, "now is not the time."

"All right," Ellis said quietly, watching Rochelle with a worried expression on his face. "I was just tryin' to lighten the mood some…"

Nick shook his head, but tried to smile to show there were no hard feelings. Rochelle, dressed in the provided denim pants and T-shirt like the rest of them, struggled to get a hold of herself.

"Do you think they'll separate us?" she whispered.

"Don't know," Nick replied, watching Coach emerge from the changing tent. "I guess we're about to find out."

They had to answer a battery of new questions in addition to the ones asked upon landing – were they related, did they have any legal obligations to each other, were there any special requests for rooming, the sorts of things asked before they would send them to their tents.

"I wanna be with Nick and Coach!" Ellis blurted. "Please. I mean, I wouldn't mind shackin' up with Rochelle or nothin', but on account that she's a girl n' all…"

"We can only allow two people to a tent," the woman sitting at the desk said calmly. She was a stern-looking lady with glasses and her hair in a tight bun, the type who wouldn't be swayed by humor or flirting, so Nick hung back.

"Why?" Ellis asked, quite innocently. He shoved his hands in his jeans pockets.

"Because of the communicability of the disease," she replied. Her voice was flat.

"Cammuna-what?" Ellis frowned. He hated it when he couldn't understand complex words. He wasn't stupid, but he hadn't been able to get to school before he was seven, according to his stories, and sometimes his lack of education caught up to him.

"How easy it is to catch the green flu, sweetie," Rochelle supplied, much calmer already.

"Right." Ellis had the presence to look bashful. "Sorry."

"It's all right." She patted his arm.

"Dumbass," Nick muttered, and was secretly pleased when Ellis scowled at him and mumbled back, "Shut up."

"What are your living requests, then?" the woman at the desk repeated. From the way she tapped her pen against the desk, she was clearly becoming annoyed.

"I'll shack with Ellis," Nick declared. "That is, if Ro doesn't mind staying with Coach."

"I don't mind," she answered, at the same time as Coach said, "She's like a daughter to me."

The woman reminded them about available contraceptive methods and pointed out that there was a medical center in the event any of them did get pregnant (the look of horrified confusion on Ellis's face was priceless). Rochelle reluctantly took the pamphlet provided.

"Wonderful," she muttered.

"Can we go to our tents now?" Coach asked impatiently. "I waded through 3,000 goddamn zombies with a baseball bat and a cruddy shotgun, I have a bad knee, I'm retired, and I deserve a goddamn rest, if I do say so."

Without speaking, the woman assigned them to their tents, handing them both color-coded buttons with the number stamped on them. Nick didn't like it, but Ellis wore his proudly, beaming.

"Nick! Hey, Nick! Look! We're 345! Get it? 3 – 4 – 5? How often does _that_ happen?"

Ignoring him, Nick spoke to the woman. "How long will we be here, do you know?"

"Until you choose to leave, or once the infection is contained and the non-infected public can be released in safety," she replied.

"So basically, you don't know."

She raised a slow eyebrow in response.

Ellis tugged on Nick's sleeve, and Nick reluctantly went with him, pinning his button to his T-shirt.

"I don't like this," he muttered. "A goddamn number? It's like a concentration camp."

"I think it's nice," Ellis chirped, grinning. "No zombies or nothin'!"

"At least there's that," Nick agreed, surprised to find himself smiling, too.

* * *

The tent was a simple thing. It was tubular in shape, and the sunlight filtered through the white canopy nicely. The floor was tarp, in the event of rain, probably. Aside from that, there were two cots against the far end, a wooden trunk between them, a small shelf, and a table-desk type thing with two crates for seats. They had access to a small radio, but other than that, there was very little. It was still better than what most would expect, especially for a hastily-built military installation, but probably they wanted to provide survivors some semblance of tranquility, to prevent breakdowns. They all had mandatory counseling sessions every other afternoon.

"Well! This is nice!" Ellis exclaimed brightly. "We even got our own beds!"

"Hurray," Nick said without enthusiasm. He trudged over to the cot on the left and sat down on it. "I claim this one."

Ellis looked at him for a little while. Had a strange expression on his face, like he was upset about something, like he was thinking about something unpleasant. Slowly, he sat down on the cot opposite Nick and put his chin in his hand.

"Do you reckon Keith's here?" he asked.

Nick stared at him.

"Sorry," Ellis amended immediately. "I just… you know… I miss him something awful."

"Ellis…" Nick began, but couldn't think of the words, so he substituted with what he knew to do best whenever he got in too deep. "You're a dipshit. He's probably a slobbering zombie by now."

Ellis's eyes flashed and his mouth twitched a little, but he didn't bite, which was admirable. "You know what? I'm jonesin' for sweet tea."

"We'll see if the mess hall has some, when it's dinnertime," Nick said, in an attempt to be kind. It seemed to strike home, because Ellis got that shy smile on his face and lowered his gaze to the floor.

"We been through hell and back, Nick."

"We sure have."

* * *

Nick woke in the middle of the night to the sound of a helicopter flying over. He would get used to the sound eventually – drop-offs were nearly constant, with supplies and people. Sometimes there would be the crack of gunfire in the distance. He could sometimes hear people talking as they passed, or screaming with post-traumatic stress, or crying, or even laughing. He could hear people having sex, sometimes, in the tents on either side of them. He could hear the jeeps passing by, the loud growl of their engines. Sometimes, too, he heard the radio. It was mostly static, because many of the radio stations had personnel who were infected, but a few hearty news channels, one Christian prayer channel, and the military channels were still open, and sometimes all people needed was the sound of a voice speaking calmly in the midst of such chaos.

As Nick listened, now, he heard something else, a quiet snuffling kind of noise, from his left. At first, he dismissed it as another woman passing by, but the sound never faded off, just kept coming in soft, undulating waves, underscored by tiny whimpers. Without moving, Nick turned his head a little on his pillow to see Ellis in his bed, curled with his back to Nick. His shoulders trembled a little as he cried.

"_Shit_," Ellis croaked pathetically, and a fresh wave of tears started.

Nick wanted nothing else but to just go back to sleep, to ignore Ellis's sobbing, knowing he would be normal in the morning, but he couldn't bring himself to. Not after everything. "Ellis?" he whispered into the darkness.

The sound faltered. Ellis moaned lowly. "What?" he rasped back.

"Are you crying?"

"Hell naw! I ain't cryin'." Ellis rolled over and tried to give him a fierce look, but his eyes were bloodshot and puffy, and his nose and lips were red. "What would I be cryin' for?"

"It sounded an awful lot like you were bawling your eyes out like a little girl."

Quietly, "Fuck you, Nick."

"Excuse me?"

"I ain't cyin'."

"Good! Because I was just _asking_."

"Well, good thing you asked, cause I _ain't cryin'_!"

"Well, good, _now I know_!"

"Fine!" Ellis jerked himself back around and stared at the wall of the tent again, hunched in on himself. "Great. Fine."

Then it was quiet again. Despite himself, Nick drifted back into sleep.

* * *

The morning was tense and uneasy. As they sat around eating their bland breakfast, Rochelle did most of the talking, blathering on about her job at the news station. Ellis kept violently stabbing his eggs rather than eating them, and in the end they were more of a gelatinous mush than a meal. Nick chased his own rock-like biscuit around on his plate with his plastic fork before he finally speared it, imagining it was Ellis's brain.

Rochelle smacked the flat of her palm on the table. "All right, that's enough," she said. "What happened with you two?"

"Nothin'!" Ellis cried. "Good Christ in a handbasket! Nothin'."

"You heard the man," Nick sneered. He turned on that thick, mocking accent he used whenever he wanted to push Ellis's buttons. "Ain't nothin' goin' on, and he waren't cryin' none last night, no sir."

"Shut up." Ellis hung his head. "Not to be a downer or nothin'… but you're not as funny as you think you are sometimes, Nick."

"Oh, strike me through my heart," Nick replied sarcastically.

Rochelle sighed and put her face in her hands, muttering, "_Boys_."

Coach stole Nicks' biscuit, rolling his eyes.

"Ellis, honey," Rochelle said, circumventing Nick's attitude for now, "what's bothering you?"

"I don't want to stir up no trouble," Ellis mumbled, embarrassed. His ears turned red.

"Honestly, sweetheart, I don't mind." She touched his arm gently.

This was enough. Ellis sighed. "I'm just worried sick, is all, 'bout Keith. I ain't heard from him since…"

"When's the last time you saw him?"

"Um. I think it was… We got separated, see. Our plan was to stick together, what 'cause that's what the news said, and anyway Keith was always a better shooter than I was… One time he shot a squirrel's head clean off from 500 feet, I swear. I saw it." Then, seeing the look on Rochelle's face, "Oh, sorry. Anyways, I guess he got sick. Real sick. Went to the hospital and everythin'. And he said, I shouldn't wait, and we would meet in Savannah… but he never came."

"We can check the medical records, if you want," Rochelle said softly, even as they both realized the inevitable truth. "What was his last name?"

"DuBois," Ellis whispered, and he sounded so young in that moment, so afraid.

Rochelle tried to smile. "Keith DuBois? Let's go see if there's a body bag for this here Keith DuBois."

They all knew that there probably wouldn't be one. But likewise, they all knew that he probably wasn't alive.

* * *

"You know, it's funny," Ellis said later that afternoon as Nick taught him how to play a proper game of blackjack. "I know it's over, and all… but when someone comes up on me from behind, I pert' near jump clean out of my skin. And sounds in the night, and stuff, you know?"

"Yeah, I hear you," Nick said distantly, shuffling. "I feel the same way. But that's why we're seeing shrinks, so we don't snap and start bashing people's heads in with crowbars."

"I reckon." Ellis frowned thoughtfully. "Do you figure it'll ever be the same?"

Nick sighed. "I don't give a shit, Ellis."

To his surprise, instead of being hurt, Ellis just rested his head in his hand and laughed. It was a defeated sound, but a relieved one.

"I'm glad I met you, man."

"Yeah, whatever," Nick muttered, feeling his face heat up.

* * *

"How come I don't know anythin' about your background, Nick?" Ellis asked about fifteen minutes later, shuffling the deck himself now.

Nick shrugged, smoking a cigarette. "Why do you give a damn?"

"Cause you're my friend, and all, that's all. I figured it wouldn't hurt bein' friendly and asking."

"You know what? I know more about _your_ background than I'd ever care to. Because you never shut up."

"Ornery sonofabitch," Ellis said, not without affection. "Here I thought it was just the zombies makin' you that way."

"Nope. I'm a grade-A asshole all of the time."

Ellis's eyes flickered up, and they were bright, so bright. He grinned. "I guess, yeah, you are."

"Are you making fun of me?"

"Me? Naw, never."

The silence stretched uncomfortably before Nick muttered, "I think you've shuffled enough, man."

"Probably." Ellis dealt their hands.

"I went to jail, once."

"What for?"

"Stupid shit. I was stupid."

"Gotta answer me one question, Nick," Ellis said, his face serious. He leaned across the table and fixed Nick with a stare that seemed to strip off the layers of his skin and muscle and open his core, even to trap that, in a way, so that he could examine it. The stare stole Nick's breath, his words, his being, and bottled them, and Nick didn't like it, being pinned like that, categorized like that, sorted out and seen in his entirety… but he couldn't look away. Speaking slowly, Ellis whispered to him, his breath smelling of the watermelon they'd had for lunch, "When you was in jail… Did you pick up the soap?"

"Aww, you motherfucker!" Nick threw his head back and laughed like he hadn't laughed in a long time.

Ellis smiled in a private, self-satisfied way, and kept on dealing the cards.

* * *

It hadn't been Nick's intention to be stuck as Ellis's roommate for so long. At the time he had volunteered to shack with him, he had been operating under the instinctual need to be close to someone he at least knew, who had been through the same horrors he had, and who he could identify as a friend. Now, though, he understood what a mistake that had been. Ellis had been obnoxious before, but now he was driving Nick batshit crazy with his nonstop chattering, his obscure little quirks, his chipper nature. Even when the entire Safe Zone went on alert because one of the pilots was bitten by an infected and crashed less than a mile east of the installation, Ellis found something to joke about, saw the bright side to _something_, had a story to tell.

Nick wanted to strangle him. He entertained the idea more than once. He wondered if Ellis would keep talking until the second he died.

"You shouldn't be so hard on him," Rochelle chided as they walked to their tents. "He's young. And just because you're a pessimist doesn't mean everyone else has to be, too."

"You sound like my mom sometimes, you know that, right?" Nick said. He was in a playful mood.

She smiled up at him. "Sweetie, it's not fair to be tough on him just because you like him."

"Where'd you come up with _that_ theory?" Nick frowned.

"Just… Oh, I don't know. Woman's intuition."

He scoffed. "Right."

"You worry about him all of the time. And when he's around, you're much more talkative. And you look at him all of the time like you're about to eat him."

"I'm about to kill him, most of the time."

She only shined her patronizing smile down on him. "One of these days, you'll wish you hadn't been so hard on him."

Nick refused to entertain the idea. "Ro, maybe you should go talk to your shrink again. Maybe your head's more broken up than you think."

She pinched him good-naturedly and disappeared into her tent. Once, a long time ago, he would have hated her, but presently he only smiled and kept on walking.

* * *

"Yo, Ellis," Nick greeted as he walked in the tent.

Ellis turned to face him, and there was a fragile softness about his face, as if he had been crying again. His eyes were red-rimmed and kind of wild, like he was about to bolt or do something reckless. When he saw Nick, he closed them as if wounded and bit his lip, rubbing at his eyebrow with the heel of his hand. "Hey," he said, and his voice was gravelly and tired.

"Overalls," Nick said quietly, uncertain. "You okay?"

"Course I am… 'Course I am. I mean, I wouldn't want to dampen your day, or nothin', what with my problems."

Nick hesitated, shoving his hands in his pockets. Truly, he didn't want to hear about it, but on the other hand, he felt obligated, in a way, to listen – as a friend. And that was a bad sign to him, that he was this invested in other people. Once, a few weeks ago, he had been totally alone and independent.

"I'll do whatever you need to me to do," Nick heard his mouth saying, and he hated himself.

Ellis didn't look at him for a long time. "Shucks. Shit. Horseshit," he muttered to himself, kicking the tarp floor and rumpling it. He hitched in a few uneven breaths, like he was trying to work up a good cry and couldn't. "I have nightmares all the time, man. Bout what happened. And I just feel like, all jittery-like, and sometimes… I think I'm cracked, a little, you know?"

"Man, Ellis, I know. It's okay. We're all like that." Nick's every instinct screamed at him to snap, to insult him, to tear him down, so that Nick wouldn't have to think about it, wouldn't feel this terrible aching feeling inside of himself, that need to comfort him. But he couldn't do that to him, couldn't.

Ellis looked up from the floor, and their eyes met and locked with a magnetic click that was almost audible. Ellis breathed in, and something in him seemed to crumble a little. "I'm a'scared."

"I know, Overalls," Nick murmured.

"And I bet you, I reckon… Keith is dead."

"Yeah, probably."

Ellis sniffed, but he couldn't seem to look away, and likewise Nick stared and stared. "You know what I hate?" Ellis said, his voice so quiet, so weak. "I hate bein' like this, so yellow all the time, and I don't like cryin' like this. I ain't cried since I was a youn'un…"

"No shame in that," Nick answered numbly. "After everything that's happened. No shame in it."

"Nick… Can I hug you?"

"I don't think that'd be a very good idea."

"All right," Ellis whispered, slumping as if defeated. "Okay." He finally tore his eyes away and shuffled over to his cot, curling up in it. Nick stayed where he was.

"You going to be all right?"

"I guess," Ellis replied. "Did I ever tell you, I met Keith at school? We both got sent to the principal's office 'cause he set the chemistry lab on fire, 'cause he was tryin' to roast a marshmallow on a dare, and I got in trouble 'cause I was kissin' Sammy Jackson instead of goin' to class, and…" He trailed off a little bit, and then, when he saw that Nick was going to let him continue, he let out a tired laugh and started again. "We was both there outside of the office, me without my pants and Keith without any eyebrows, and I guess we was both fourteen at the time… And he looks at me and he says, 'What happened to you?' and I was all, 'Well, what happened to _you_?' and we just kind of got in this fistfight, cause I guess Sammy Jackson was his girlfriend, but it wasn't like I knew that. I mean, Sammy Jackson had the reputation, you know, for bein' a little… _loose-with-her-morals_, but I didn't think nothin' of it until Keith done slugged me across the face…"

Nick smiled, and this seemed to break something in Ellis, because the tears flowed then, but they didn't seem to affect anything at all. He just kept talking, laughing a little.

"You wouldn't think it, but we both got suspended for three days, and I guess we sorta became friends after that. He thought he was funny, he said… I guess, I thought he was brave, cause he did all of these things I never woulda done. Probably cause he had no sense, really. He'd do _anything _on a dare. Once, I dared him to try and parachute offa the top of the bank building's roof, cause it was the biggest building in town and all, and he broke his arm clean in half. Oh, man, it was the nastiest mess a bastard did see! He said the doctor told him they'd need to give him a bionic arm or somethin', but I guess that never happened. Leastways… I never saw it." There was a pause as Ellis drew in on himself, frowning. Nick wondered if this was how all of his stories might have gone, if they didn't always interrupt him. "Once, we both just got real drunk. We was out fishing, and it was hot, and we didn't know, you know, how much beer we had until we was startin' to feel a little sick… I guess, we was seventeen. Keith, he just looks at me and goes, he says, 'Hey, El, your eyes are real pretty' and it was such a weird thing for a fella to be sayin' like that…"

Nick realized where this was going, wanted to put on the breaks and back up, but he couldn't, now. It was too late. His mouth dried up and he suddenly felt guilty, as if he had walked in on a private moment, and never in a million years would he have thought he'd feel guilty over something like this, not _him_, Nick, conman and sociopath extraordinaire. But here he was, strapped helpless in the passenger's seat with no way out.

Ellis kept talking. He was long gone. "And I didn't know what to say to that, so I was like, 'Well, thank you, I guess' – cause what _do _you say? And he just kind of… he just kind of sidled on up to me, and it was weird, cause I felt kind of like a girl, gettin' the moves put on me like that, but I couldn't tell him no cause… cause he's _Keith_. I reckon he'd done it a thousand times before, he was actin' all embarrassed when he kissed me, and he kept on apologizin' like it was somethin' bad… But I don't think it was bad, do you? My Ma always told me, it was bad business gettin' involved with men and the like, cause it's a sin and all, but I figure, since it was Keith, it was all right… And anyway, can you believe it? He tried to light out of there, in the middle of the lake in a fishin' boat, drunker n' a fish, and I stopped him, cause I said, 'I double-dog dare you to do it again' and he ain't never backed down from a dare before. I don't really remember much what happened after that, exceptin' for we was both soaked when we got back, and I guess he caught hell from his Ma for bein' drunk…"

At this point, Ellis blessedly trailed off and stayed quiet. His eyes were swimming and even though he was looking straight at Nick, he was somewhere else, somewhere far away.

It was okay.

Nick sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose to soothe his headache, and he wasn't sure if Ellis saw him or not, but he smiled a sweet, tired smile.

"We'll be all right," Nick said to no one in particular.

Ellis fell asleep.

* * *

Time didn't exist within the confines of The Safe Zone. Nick didn't like it. There was no liveliness here, no motion. Everything was dull and regimented – mealtimes, bedtimes, where you could go and with whom. They couldn't eat meat other than fish and the genetically enhanced chickens the military raised on-site. Nick wanted a good hamburger more than anything in the whole wide world. Ellis and Coach echoed his sentiments with fervor.

After the long story about Keith, Ellis seemed to achieve some sort of closure. He hung closer to Nick than ever, though, which was the only downside.

"You're his best friend right now," Rochelle informed Nick when he complained about it. "He loves you."

"Don't know why. Kid bugs the shit out of me."

She gave him a wan, motherly kind of smile. "Couldn't you at least give him a shot? He tries so hard to impress you, you know."

"What, with his gator stories? Bullshit."

"You know," she said quietly, "everybody needs somebody, sometimes. You can't stand up on your own all of the time."

"I can," Nick snapped. "And I will."

"Man, I can't wait for the day we get out of here," Rochelle sighed, holding herself.

Nick stood and left her there in the rec hall, dodging a young lady and her child as they came in. The kid gripped Nick's T-shirt for a second, just a split second, before he was pulled away.

* * *

In the third week, Ellis's skills as a mechanic were adopted by the military, and now throughout most of the afternoon he was employed to service the jeeps that patrolled the pathways between tents. This seemed to do him a lot of good; he returned each night smelling of sweat and motor oil, grinning ear to ear, and even whistling, sometimes.

"Hello, Nick!" he would twitter, beaming.

Usually he didn't get an answer back.

Tonight, Nick was sprawled across his cot, deep in thought. His last conversation with the shrink had made him nervous. She had told him that he needed a reason to live, and he didn't like the way she had said it, like he was going to go apeshit without a girlfriend, a brother, a child to think about. But he wouldn't do that – he was Nick.

As he lay painfully awake, Ellis came through the door. The sun was setting and lit up everything in a hot orange glow. The pink light played off of Ellis's flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes. It was getting colder and colder as winter came.

"Nick! Hey, bud," Ellis greeted, stripping out of his work clothes before slipping into the stiff pajamas provided to them by the military. Nick didn't realize he was listlessly watching until Ellis turned back around and raised his eyebrows at him. "What?"

"Huh?"

"You look a little sick, man."

"Do I? Guess it must be you. You turn my stomach."

"Ha ha," Ellis sneered, but he was smiling. He shimmied his hips a little as he squirmed out of his pants. "They gave me a size to small this time, I tell you what… I hate it when that happens. Remember when that happened to Coach? Haw! That was a good one."

"Uh huh," said Nick distractedly.

"You sure you're feelin' all right?" Ellis dropped his pajama bottoms, picked them up – _Lord help us_, Nick thought dully, taking in the brief view of Ellis's young, rather well-toned Southern behind.

"Okay, I guess," he muttered.

"Not catchin' no flu, are you?" Ellis teased, even though it really wasn't funny at all, and if a passing soldier had heard, Nick's ass would have been in quarantine faster than you could say 'just kidding.'

Nick sighed, throwing a hand over his eyes. "You know what, Ellis?"

"What?" Ellis sounded amused. He was in higher spirits than he had ever been. Nick wondered how obnoxiously chipper he could _really_ be – or had been, before the zombie apocalypse rocked the East Coast.

"I didn't realize it, but I'm lonely as fuck."

The silence stretched. The tarp crunched as Ellis came to the side of Nick's bed, thought better of it, and went to his own cot. When he heard no comment, Nick uncovered his eyes and looked at Ellis in surprise.

This seemed to break the spell, because Ellis finally spoke. "Me too, sometimes."

"It's been like, two months since I last got laid. I'm so horny, I think I'm gonna die."

Ellis got that quirky, surprised smile on his face, and laughed. "Christ! Just talk 'bout it louder, won't you?" But if Nick didn't know better, he would have guessed that maybe, just maybe, Ellis was blushing.

"What? You have to be feeling it, too, man."

"It ain't decent. My Mama raised me right." Ellis scratched behind his ear, a nervous habit he had picked up from somewhere, and it was clear that he was embarrassed and maybe a little apprehensive to be breaching this subject.

"Didn't you and Keith talk about it at all?" Nick pressed, feeling an unexplained spike of emotion he couldn't name.

"Naw," Ellis murmured. "Not really."

They didn't talk after that.

* * *

Nick woke up and nearly screamed at the feeling of cold hands touching him. He jerked awake and started to attack when he heard Ellis's soothing voice from above him, "Quit your squirmin', it's just me."

"Ellis?" Nick gasped into the blackness. He struggled to slow his racing heart. It had been weeks before he'd woken up so scared, so certain he was about to die, so close to screaming out loud. "Jesus _Christ_, you asshole, what the fuck?"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Ellis muttered, curling up beside him, now sufficiently under his covers. His freezing hands were all over Nick's naked torso.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothin'! Nothin'. I'm sorry. Please don't think lowly of me, okay?"

"What… Ellis…" Nick tried to squirm away, but Ellis held fast.

"I heard somethin'…" Then, even quieter, "I'm a'scared."

Once, in the swamplands, Nick and Ellis had curled up inside of the same sleeping bag, to ward off the cold and, by an unspoken understanding, out of pure fear. Nick would never forget the sounds outside, the whirr of the insects, the squelch of mud under human feet, the ragged breathing sometimes just outside their door…

Silently, Nick slipped an accepting arm around him. Ellis let out a choked sob of relief, pressing just slightly closer, and they both tumbled back into sleep.

* * *

The next morning, Ellis woke Nick up by smacking him in the face with a pillow.

"Get up, you lazy-gator!" Ellis crowed. "Rise and shine!"

He was already dressed and ready to go to breakfast. He harassed Nick the entire time he was getting dressed, urging him to hurry up, distracting him with stories. It was the same as it had ever been.

Nick marveled at it, as they walked together to the mess hall. The way Ellis chattered the entire way, smiling, but not delirious. He had bounced straight back, like he always had, after a moment of brilliant weakness, which took such strength to show.

In a way, Ellis would be stronger than Nick ever could be.

* * *

"What are your plans when we get out of here, Coach?" Rochelle asked over lunch after a spectacular rant about news stations.

Coach looked at her as if surprised, and then smiled. "Don't know much, baby girl," he said affectionately. "I guess I might go back to teaching. I'm not as young as I used to be."

"We'll miss you," she said quietly. "It's a shame."

"I have a feeling fate wants us to stick around near each other," Coach said, and for the first time that Nick had noticed, he took the cross hanging around his neck in one huge hand. "I don't imagine we'll manage to stay separated for long."

"No, probably not," Rochelle said, probably to humor him, smiling. She looked at Ellis. "How about you?"

"Shit," Ellis said bashfully. "I dunno. Guess I'll go back to fixin' cars. Maybe one day I'll get to work in a pit crew… Man, I do miss racin'…"

"_That's_ your dream?" Nick scoffed, and Ellis glowered at him.

"Well? What's _yours_, then, if you got room to be talkin' so big?" he demanded.

Nick didn't say anything. He took another bite of his sandwich and chewed slowly. _Stay Alive and Become a Millionaire_.

Ellis frowned and stared at the table. He clasped his hands in front of him. The silence was long and awkward.

"Guess I'll be going to Illinois again, for a while," Nick muttered at last. "I don't have much of a place to go."

"I'll go with you," Ellis said, "if you want."

Nick looked at him for a long time, and Ellis kept looking between the table and Nick as if he couldn't decide which was more exciting. "I don't see why not," Nick said.

Rochelle grinned smugly.

* * *

"I've gotta work here pretty soon," Ellis said reluctantly. He set down his cards. "I lost anyway."

Nick sighed. "If only we actually had something to bet with, this would be much less of a pain in my ass."

Ellis smiled, and it was that evil kind of smile he got when he was about to do something particularly, unexpectedly nasty, or he was about to bash some zombie heads in. "One time, me and Keith played strip poker…"

"It's probably better if you don't tell that story," Nick warned him, but he felt dangerously close to cracking up.

Ellis didn't stop. "And he said to me, he said, 'Hey, Ellis, I dare you that first one to shuck their underdrawers has to take a picture and send it to their Momma,' and I said, 'I ain't _wearin_' no underdrawers…'"

Nick didn't want to hear anymore. "That's enough. Get out of here before you're late."

"… We didn't even get to play poker, actually, thinkin' back on it…"

"_Now_."

Ellis fled cackling.

* * *

"I think you're putting him up to this, Rochelle," Nick muttered. "Aren't you?"

"Up to what?" she asked innocently. When she breathed, puffs of condensation would appear before her face. It was too cold to be standing outside.

"Having him tell me stories about strip poker, and stuff, just to get to me. It's clever, but it won't work."

"He's really doing that?" she asked, and laughed. "Oh, he's such a sweet little marshmallow when he wants to be!"

Nick didn't bother asking into it.

* * *

Ellis showed up that night a little bit drunk. Some of the military guys decided to have fun, and he stuck around. They weren't supposed to have alcohol in The Safe Zone, but every type of pick-me-up makes its way undercover somehow.

"How come Ro calls you a marshmallow?" Nick asked as Ellis slumped bonelessly onto his cot.

"Dunno," Ellis admitted. "Probably on account of how white and soft I am." This made him giggle, and the sound of him tittering like a schoolgirl sent Nick over the edge, and he was laughing, too.

"I think we're going to be all right, Ellis."

"Probably," Ellis said tiredly. "Probably, probably."

* * *

The next day, as they walked to breakfast, their feet crunching over the frost and worn dirt of the pathway, Ellis slowly slipped his glove-clad hand inside Nick's own. He didn't look at him, and likewise Nick didn't look at Ellis, because if they did – oh, God, if they did – they would all fall apart.

Nick thought about pulling his hand away, felt the strong urge to, but he didn't.

Ellis was smiling so hard it must have hurt. But they didn't speak. The words wouldn't come.

Up above them, helicopters crossed the sky like giant bugs, like giant birds, like the fingertips of God. All at once, Nick felt so very small, but so very whole, and so very full of purpose.

All around them, it started to snow. Ellis turned his face up and stuck out his tongue to catch snowflakes. Nick hated the cold, but he laughed anyway. And it was all right, it was all right.

- **the end**


End file.
